With a ruling by the Merit Systems Protection
Board effectively stripping away whistleblower protections, whistleblowers across
the country (and GAP) are mourning the death of the Whistleblower Protection
Act. (Center
for Public Integrity article)
So what happened? Well, the MSPB ruled that when a whistleblower
reveals information deemed “sensitive security information,” there are no
protections for the whistleblower under the Whistleblower Protection Act. This
is even the case when the information was revealed by the whistleblower before the information was classified as
“sensitive security information.” This decision came down in a case involving
former Air Marshal Robert MacLean, who was fired for revealing that marshals
would no longer be required on long-distance flights, which could compromise
the security of air passengers.
This
decision essentially means that government agencies can view worker protections
outlined by the Whistleblower Protection Act to be voluntary guidelines – effectively
killing the WPA.
GAP’s Tom Devine put it best (in the Washington
Post):
“Until Congress acts, the Whistleblower Protection Act is dead…the
MacLean decision means government agencies can fire employees for any disclosure otherwise
protected by the WPA. The decision reduces the WPA to a voluntary guideline
that agencies can cancel at will by issuing blanket gag regulations."
Not that things weren’t bad for whistleblowers
before – of 45 rulings by the administrative court in recent years, it has only
backed whistleblowers once, Devine said in an
Orange County Register article. Still, this is an official death warrant,
and needs to be corrected immediately with the (hopeful) passage of the
Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act of 2009.
-- Dylan Blaylock
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